Overachieving and Underachieving NBA Teams Through the Season's First Quarter

The Oklahoma City Thunder are 8-9, but our metrics have them as one of the NBA's top teams.

The NBA season started a couple weeks earlier than we're used to this year, in order to stretch out the games and reduce back-to-backs. One thing that has resulted from that change is that we have a bigger sample size to take stock of at the Thanksgiving holiday, when the NBA stops for a day to catch it's breath (and eat some turkey).

Each team has played between 16 and 19 games, which is pretty darn close to 20, which is roughly a quarter of the 82-game schedule. All that is to say, let's call this roughly the quarter mark of the season.

We all know that a team's win-loss record is not the best way to analyze its strength or relative success, since factors like schedule, rest, point differential, and so on play a role. One way to analyze how good a team has been playing that's a little less anecdotal is by using nERD, our proprietary metric.

Team nERD is a team ranking on a scale from 0-100 (with 50 as the league average), that is meant to be predictive of the team's ultimate winning percentage, based on efficiency factors. For example, the Golden State Warriors currently lead the league in Team nERD at 79.9, meaning they're playing like a team that would end an 82-game season with a 0.799 win-loss percentage -- roughly a 66-16 record by year's end. Their actual win-loss percentage with a record of 13-5 is 0.722, which means they are actually playing 7.7% (+0.077) better than their current record suggests.

If you look at our weekly power rankings, you'll notice that some teams are playing better than their win-loss records would have you believe, while others are playing worse. In other words, some teams have a big gap between their actual win-loss percentage, and their implied ultimate percentage via nERD.

Here is a ranking of those differentials, listed from the teams who are playing better than their records suggest, all the way down to those who are actually playing worse than you might think based on their simple win-loss totals:

Rank

Team

Record

Win-Loss %

nERD

Implied Final %

Difference

1

Oklahoma City Thunder

8-9

0.471

65.7

0.657

0.186

2

Atlanta Hawks

3-15

0.167

32.4

0.324

0.157

3

Los Angeles Clippers

6-11

0.353

47.5

0.475

0.122

4

Charlotte Hornets

8-9

0.471

59.0

0.590

0.119

5

Memphis Grizzlies

7-10

0.412

51.4

0.514

0.102

6

Golden State Warriors

13-5

0.722

79.9

0.799

0.077

7

Washington Wizards

10-8

0.566

60.2

0.602

0.036

8

Orlando Magic

8-10

0.444

48.0

0.480

0.036

9

Dallas Mavericks

4-15

0.211

24.6

0.246

0.035

10

Portland Trail Blazers

10-8

0.556

58.8

0.588

0.032

11

Brooklyn Nets

6-11

0.353

38.2

0.382

0.029

12

Toronto Raptors

11-6

0.647

67.0

0.670

0.023

13

Los Angeles Lakers

8-11

0.421

43.9

0.439

0.018

14

Utah Jazz

8-11

0.421

42.6

0.426

0.005

15

Indiana Pacers

10-8

0.556

53.7

0.537

-0.019

16

Denver Nuggets

10-8

0.556

52.5

0.525

-0.031

17

Chicago Bulls

3-13

0.188

14.1

0.141

-0.047

18

Houston Rockets

14-4

0.778

71.2

0.712

-0.066

19

San Antonio Spurs

11-7

0.611

53.8

0.538

-0.073

20

New Orleans Pelicans

10-8

0.556

47.3

0.473

-0.083

21

Milwaukee Bucks

9-8

0.529

44.5

0.445

-0.084

22

Philadelphia 76ers

10-7

0.588

49.9

0.499

-0.089

23

New York Knicks

10-7

0.588

49.8

0.498

-0.090

24

Miami Heat

8-9

0.471

37.9

0.379

-0.092

25

Phoenix Suns

7-12

0.368

27.4

0.274

-0.094

26

Detroit Pistons

11-6

0.647

53.0

0.530

-0.117

27

Minnesota Timberwolves

11-7

0.611

48.9

0.489

-0.122

28

Boston Celtics

16-3

0.842

69.4

0.694

-0.148

29

Cleveland Cavaliers

11-7

0.611

45.7

0.457

-0.154

30

Sacramento Kings

5-13

0.278

12.3

0.123

-0.155

The team that stands out the most here is the Oklahoma City Thunder, who currently sit at eighth in the Western Conference with a record of 8-9 but come in fifth in our NBA team power rankings with a nERD of 65.7 (which also places them third in the West, trailing only the Warriors and Houston Rockets).

The Thunder have essentially lost small and won big all season, as evidenced by their fifth-ranked margin of victory at 5.35. They are currently the only team in the Association with a positive point differential but a record below .500.

Despite being 8-9, the Thunder are actually playing like a team that would finish an 82-game season with a winning percentage of 0.657, which roughly equates to 54-28. You can also see the difference between their current win-loss record and reality in their Pythagorean win-loss record (expected win-loss total based on points scored and allowed) of 12-5.

Simply put, the Thunder are better than we think. They might be a wolf in sheep's clothing right now.

The Sacramento Kings (5-13) are somehow even worse than their record suggests. nERD implies that they're playing like a 10-72 team.

The 16-3 Boston Celtics should come back down to earth a little now that their winning streak is over, as they're playing more like a 57-25 team than the 69-13 record that they're on pace for.

The 11-6 Detroit Pistons probably aren't for real. They're still projected to go 43-39 over a full season -- a step up from last year's mark of 37-45 but a far cry from the 53-29 record that they're on pace for.

The Utah Jazz are the most realistic team in the league, with only a 0.5% difference between their current win-loss percentage (0.421) and what nERD projects their ultimate win-loss percentage to be (0.426).

Keep on eye on these trends as the season progresses, as some teams could see their current win-loss records regress closer to their projected ones once more games are played.